


Almost

by come_qwattly



Series: Smoke Signals [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, there's like .2 seconds of nick so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 13:53:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5746255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/come_qwattly/pseuds/come_qwattly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry read a quote about internal light. And there's cigarette smoke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Almost

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to harryismymuse. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Harry read a quote once about an internal light. A burning internal light. Something about how if there was a light that shined, inside of everyone, inside of everything, every time you were about to do something for the last time, to see someone for the last time, to be somewhere for the last time, then that light would burn bright inside of whatever you were leaving. That if you saw the light, burning at its brightest, you would hold the people you were leaving tighter, one last time, you would eat everything on the menu at the restaurant you were leaving, one last time, you’d walk down the street at a slow pace, enjoying, one last time.

 

One last time.

 

And at first, afterwards, Harry thought it to be stupid. He thought that, if, _if_ there was a shining light inside all of us that did in fact burn bright when it was time for things to be done, that we might not live as freely as we do now. He thought that if that’s how the world was made, that we would always live on the edge, always wondering if today would be the last day, if today our lights would burn bright, if today was it. He thought that if people lived like that, then they weren’t really living. And then, one morning in March, with no warning, no last hug – knowing it was the last – no last kiss, look, touch, with nothing to ease him into the ache softer, he woke up alone.

 

And he’d never wished to have seen a burning white light more.

 

**

 

He’s mid-sentence when he smells it the first time. He’s sat in an almost comfortable chair in an almost too expensive restaurant on an almost too noisy street. With someone who can almost make the hole, the ache, in his chest subside. Almost. Because then he smells cigarette smoke.

 

And the world seems to stop moving.

 

Nick gives him a wild and confused look, compensated with a smile, as Harry whips his head left, no, right, in frenzy. He’s looking for someone holding a cigarette loosely between two pouty, pink lips with the coolness of every suave man to ever exist. He’s looking for someone with tight jeans and black boots with the laces undone because, _“tying ‘em would ruin me look, babes.”_ He’s looking for someone with jet-black hair and caramel coffee skin and eyes the size of the moon. He’s looking for someone with scruff that burns for days and fingers that pull him apart with ease. He’s looking for someone with a smile that crinkles around his eyes and a laugh that makes Harry’s heart puddle. He’s looking for someone with a voice quiet as the wind but sinful as chocolate.

 

He’s looking, he never stopped, but he’s not there.

 

“What was that?” Nick leans closer to the center of the table and chuckles a quiet laugh as Harry settles back into his almost comfortable chair in the almost too expensive restaurant on the almost too noisy street with the person that almost made the ache in his chest dull.

 

His fingers twitch against the tablecloth so he steadies his breathing best he can. He doesn’t talk, he doesn’t move, he doesn’t breathe, for a few moments longer. He waits for thoughts of a boy with a thousand different hairstyles, with a thousand different tattoos, with a thousand different ways to make Harry fall in love over and over and over again, he waits for these thoughts to trickle away one by one before he opens his eyes again.

 

“Nothing,” He pulls his glasses over his eyes to hide the tears that threaten to spill over and ignores the phone buzzing in his pocket; because that’s all it was, “Nothing.”

 

**

 

He’s dead asleep the second time he smells it. He thinks he’s dreamed it, at first, when he sits up suddenly with a start at three o’clock in the morning on a Thursday. He’s lain in an almost too large bed in an almost too expensive hotel on an almost too quiet street. On an almost far enough away continent where’s he’s almost able to forget the storm that rages inside of him. Almost. Because then he smells cigarette smoke.

 

And the world seems to stop moving.

 

His heart is beating faster than it did after that one show in Mexico City, faster than it does when he’s run too hard and too far to keep going. His chest is heaving and there’s sweat pooling at the bottom of his spine near the sheets where his hands are fisting the fabric for dear life. He gulps a few breaths of air like he hasn’t breathed in months. Nine months, one might say. The hole in his chest clenches roughly and suddenly he’s running to the bathroom, dry heaving into the toilet but nothing comes up. Sobs begin to rake through his body, bone by bone, inch by inch, until he’s pushed himself against the tub with his knees practically molding into the flesh of his chest. He screams into the cocoon he’s created for himself and even though his cries, his pleads, echoes throughout the flat, he knows that no one will hear him.

 

He screams that much louder.

 

He claws at the skin on his arms, the ship tattoo near his shoulder. He tries to direct the pain in his chest anywhere, everywhere, else. Just so it would stop, just for a moment, so that he could feel something other than empty and full of sadness for more than a few breaths. He tries to squeeze his eyes closed tightly, as if that alone could drive away thoughts of a lanky, brown boy with a freckle in his eye and a tattoo on his hand, a hand that clung to his skin, his soul, hours after being touched. As if that alone could drive away thoughts of a skinny, tan boy with a smooth chest and legs too long to not be wrapped around his waist.

 

Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t; and Harry hurts that much more.

 

He finds some strength, somewhere, to push himself from the floor and shuffle back into the bedroom. He doesn’t look for _him_ this time. Not here. He knows that it was a dream, an imagination, something he created in his head. A smell that wasn’t really a smell at all, but a wish, a want, a hope. And it wasn’t really there. So he climbs back into bed, in the middle, because he can’t seem to find it inside himself to claim a side anymore, and stares. He pushes away thoughts of whispered stories or comforting nothings from lips too sinful to not bite. He pushes away thoughts of warm arms and thick accents. He pushes them away, along with the stale smell of cigarettes, and falls into a dreamless sleep.

 

He doesn’t even pretend to not hear the buzzing on the side table.

 

**

 

He’s at home the third time he smells it. And if he said he didn’t see it coming, he’d be lying, because they say that everything comes in threes. He’s at home sitting on his almost too worn-in couch with an almost too empty bottle (a few bottles, if he’s being honest about it) of wine and an almost too cheesy movie playing on the telly. With an almost news-worthy buzz that almost numbs the pain in his heart, almost helps him ignore the ache, the gaping hole, in his chest. Almost. Because then he smells cigarette smoke.

 

And the world seems to stop moving.

 

This time he doesn’t look. This time he doesn’t cry. This time he doesn’t panic. This time, he just sits. He feels. He allows the smell to suffocate him, allows the memories to flood his mind like a broken dam. He closes his eyes slowly and doesn’t push away thoughts of a scrawny boy from Bradford who can’t dance to save his life but has a voice that could save millions. He doesn’t push away thoughts of a stubborn boy from Bradford who never backed down from a fight but never argued with malice. He doesn’t push away thoughts of the beautiful boy from Bradford who stole his heart, but never needed anyone’s permission to take it anyways. He doesn’t push, so they continue to flow in. He doesn’t push, so they pull. They pull him back to the night. The last night…

 

_“Jaan,” his fingers ghost against the doorframe, “that shit is gonna kill you.”_

_It’s a solid argument this time: right to the point, clear-cut._

_Another drag is inhaled, exhaled against the blind night sky and he knows that Zayn’s only done this to hear the resigned sigh that leaves Harry’s lips soon after. He shakes his head, his curls moving about along his shoulders and his lips curling into his mouth so to try and stop the smile from crawling along his face. Zayn turns to face him with the tips of his lips kissing his cheeks._

_“You’re insufferable,” and Zayn’s smile widens, “… but they’re still going to kill you.” Zayn smirks and flicks the ashes over the railings._

_He knows that, Harry knows he knows that, and he’s waiting to hear just how much he knows that, but, “Before, or after you do, jaan?” is what slips around the filter instead._

Tears are falling down his cheeks before he opens his eyes again. Maybe it’s the drunken haze clouding his mind, or maybe it’s the alcohol giving him liquid courage, but he’s all of a sudden moving from the couch and down a hallway and to a door that he hasn’t touched in such a long time. He swallows, reaches his fingers out to brush against the door in front of him. It’s yellow. Not bright, highlighter yellow, but a darker, duller yellow. Almost the sun but not quite, maybe a summer sunset almost burnt out. And, really, he hates it. No, not really; but he wishes he did. He wishes that he would have fussed more about it because _this_ yellow, “ _doesn’t really match the house,_ ” but he didn’t because a pair of honey and dark chocolate eyes had stared at him for seven seconds too long and a pair of bubblegum stained lips had breathed against his own too dangerously close for him to ever put up a worthy fight.

 

He never chewed gum quite the same after that.

 

And, if he's honest, he never really liked the color yellow. He liked the sun, the sunflowers along the French countryside, the lemon pops that his mum kept in the freezer for him every summer. He liked it all, but he never really saw yellow as something to write songs about, something to write poems about; he never really understood it. And then one day, it was raining, he thinks, in October a paint-splattered boy with a goofy grin stood next to him against the wall with his hands over Harry’s bare chest, touching his heart, and he finally understood. In that moment, and every moment on, he felt like he could live in the color yellow, felt like he could write a million songs, a million poems, about the light and the power of yellow. All he saw was yellow; all he breathed were the ghosts of golden sunsets and the whispers of dandelion sunrises. He felt the color inside him, radiating outwards, touching anything, everything that he saw. He thought of yellow even when the harsh white glow of the moon haloed around a vanilla flavored boy with eyelashes long enough to kiss both of their cheeks in a kiss. Yellow was everywhere, everything, for so long.

 

So, It was no surprise that it rained for months after Zayn left.

 

He inhales; he can almost taste the fumes from the spray paint used in the room behind it. His palm presses flat against the wood followed by his forehead. Maybe it’s the drunken haze clouding his mind, or maybe it’s the alcohol giving him liquid courage, but he opens the door. His breath catches in the back of his throat and it’s quiet. It’s quiet, but it’s all the same. None of the canvases have moved, none of the spray cans have been capped; there’s still a stained rag over the back of a chair that Harry can’t help but shove against his face. Because, yes, it does still smell like Zayn. The entire room smells like Zayn. It’s quiet but suddenly it’s deafening with the screams of everything _ZAYN, ZAYN, ZAYN._ And suddenly Harry is overcome with the sounds of the brown boy who created the summertime and the butterflies and the paint fumes and the alcohol, and suddenly he’s throwing open the French doors and gasping over the edge of the balcony. And suddenly the alcohol that almost numbed the ache in his chest is gone. Because he smells cigarette smoke.

 

And the world seems to stop moving.

 

**

 

He wakes thinking of internal light and last goodbyes.

 

It’s late, or maybe it’s early, depending on how he looks at it. He’s still in the room with the yellow door and the faint smell of cigarettes lingers in a sleepy haze around him. He clutches the tattered shirt to his chest tighter as the tears fall, as the reality, once again, sets in. The tears fall because the boy with the almond shaped fingers and lips soft as clouds kissed him goodnight without saying goodbye. The tears fall because the silly boy who wore jeans poolside and leather jackets in June left him shivering and alone. The tears fall because after months and months of missing and wishing and hoping and waiting, Harry cracks for the final time.

 

Harry cracks, but he doesn’t break.

 

And there’s a buzzing somewhere that pulls him down the hall and back into the living room where an almost too worn-in couch with an almost too empty bottle (a few bottles, if he’s being honest about it) of wine and an almost too cheesy movie playing on the telly are decorating his life. There’s a table in the middle of it all with a phone that’s burning with a bright white light. And Harry knows what this means. Harry’s read about this kind of light before, and at one time he thought it to be stupid. And maybe the ache in his chest is painful, and maybe there are more tears to be shed.

 

And maybe, maybe, maybe.

 

He breathes a heavy breath aloud. Because this light feels different; this light doesn’t feel like he needs to look around his flat one more time and touch everything with soft, remembering hands and delicate fingers. This light doesn’t feel like he needs to hold on tight before he lets go. This light feels like he can breathe for the first time in such a long time. This light feels like it’s almost too bright to see anything else, almost too loud to hear anything else, almost too present to be anywhere else. And Harry doesn’t feel like it’s over. Harry almost feels like the past is behind him and the future is happening now. Harry almost feels like he can watch and wait as the phone fades to black. Harry almost feels like the air he’s breathing is new. Almost. Because then he smells cigarette smoke.

 

And the world seems to stop moving.

 

And he answers the phone. 

 

" _Jaan_..."

 

And he's home.

 

"Jaan."


End file.
